New VC fund in Singapore to focus exclusively on enterprise tech, raising $100m

L to R: Murli Ravi, Benjamin Tan, and Jeremy Tan

There’s a slew of new venture capital funds in town, and Tin Men Capital is one of them. Unlike most funds, however, Tin Men has a narrow focus – enterprise technology. Co-founder Murli Ravi says that the firm, which is in the midst of raising US$100 million, has done its first close, but he didn’t reveal the size.

“However, we can say that we are on track and ready to invest,” Ravi tells Tech in Asia. “We have already confirmed our first two investments, are in the late stages of evaluating two more candidates and are actively seeking additional opportunities.”

Ravi is a veteran investor. He was the head for Southeast and South Asia investments at JAFCO Asia. Joining him as partners in Tin Men are Jeremy Tan, previously an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, and Benjamin Tan, formerly the chief digital officer (Southeast Asia) of marketing and advertising agency Grey Group.

Tin Men has invested in two Singapore startups. There’s Overdrive IOT, which has developed a way for businesses to track their physical assets using Bluetooth, and Globaltix, a provider of e-ticketing solutions to online and offline travel agents.

Moving forward, the fund is on the lookout for “opportunities in smart industrial technologies and automation” in the areas of “smart cities, security, enterprise productivity, transport and logistics, omnichannel retail enablement, and travel and tourism,” according to its press release.

It will back pre-series A firms in Southeast Asia with positive unit economics, which means a high customer lifetime value coupled with a low acquisition cost.

“We then commit to our investees that we will lead all follow-on financing rounds through the growth lifecycle until they exit as well as manage the entire financing and exit process for them,” says Ravi.

On its website, Tin Men contends that “good businesses that do not look like unicorns continue to be ignored, whereas the right drivers are there for fundamentally strong B2B technology companies to flourish.”

It believes that enterprise technology firms in Southeast Asia lack sufficient access to capital and are under-served. Based on venture capital data in Southeast Asia from 2007 to 2017, US$5.8 billion out of a total of US$8.97 billion went to just six large consumer-oriented startups. In comparison, enterprise tech companies won’t need a large deployment of capital to succeed.

Ravi wouldn’t reveal the returns he has made while managing a fund at JAFCO, citing a confidentiality agreement. However, he says that Jeremy and Benjamin have realized fivefold returns on their angel investments.

Update on 18 August, 2pm: Tin Men Capital invests starting from the pre-series A stage, not post-series A.